


The Asshole Project

by Margaery



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Evil Plans, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margaery/pseuds/Margaery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Let me get this straight,” Thanasi says, his post-sex snack lying forgotten in his lap. “Your agent wants you to be an <i>asshole</i>?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Asshole Project

**Author's Note:**

> Although these characters are inspired by the public personas of living people and inspiration is taken from current events, nothing is implied about the actual Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis (or Nick's unnamed agent, for that matter). This is fiction.

The day that Nick’s life changes, he gets up on the wrong side of the bed (literally), trips over carelessly discarded shoes, comes within an inch of falling and breaking his right hand, and only just saves himself by hopping ignominiously to safety.

“That was special,” the naked man in his bed says, stretching luxuriantly.

“That’s why _I_ sleep on the right side,” Nick retorts, salvaging his dignity with an arrogant jut of the chin.

Thanasi scratches his belly, turning into the morning sun as if he’s a cat. “Don’t you have a meeting this morning?”

Nick sniffs the pair of jeans flung haphazardly over a chair back. They’ll do. “Why do you think I’m up?”

Thanasi’s grin has a lot of teeth in it, and a delightful shiver runs up Nick’s spine. “Can I delay you?”

Unfortunately, Nick really has to make this meeting. Plus, if he doesn’t get his ass out of here in the next fifteen minutes, his mum might come looking for him, and while he sometimes thinks she’s guessed about Thanasi, he doesn’t think she wants to have her suspicions confirmed by walking in on her son balls-deep in him.

“Sorry,” he says, regretfully, and pinches Thanasi’s ass on his way to the bathroom.

“Prick,” Thanasi says, and kicks out at him, just missing. “See if I blow you tonight.”

Nick sings in the shower, just to make sure Thanasi can’t fall back asleep. 

~

“Say that again,” Nick says, hoping that his voice sounded normal and not like it was about to crack. He’s about ready to be done with this ‘being a teenager’ nonsense (except for teenage stamina, that can stay).

Next to him, Christos has stiffened, doing an excellent impression of a bloodhound. 

His new agent leans back in his chair, smiling. “I said, I can make you a star in a year.”

If you ask Nick, he’s already a star – not everybody beats _Nadal_ when they’re nineteen years old. At _Wimbledon_ , on Centre Court. That was pretty fucking dope. Eat your heart out, Tomic. 

“You have some name recognition in Australia,” the agent goes on, maintaining eye contact. Nick figures it’s probably Agent Trick #1, making your client feel important, but he can still feel it working on him. “This next year will be critical. I’m not talking about a few endorsements. I’m talking about setting yourself up for the long haul. The current stars are aging, and you can position yourself to take their place.”

“If I keep winning,” Nick says, nodding shrewdly.

(He tries not to let himself get lost thinking about what taking Federer, Nadal, Djokovic’s place would mean. Worldwide name recognition. More money than he can dream of. Private jets. Fan adulation. A legacy. Everything.)

The agent waves his hand, a small noncommittal gesture. “Some amount of winning is necessary, yes. But I assume you can handle that part of the equation.”

“What’s the other part of the equation?” Christos asks, leaning forward.

The agent tells them.

~

“Let me get this straight,” Thanasi says, his post-sex snack lying forgotten in his lap. “Your agent wants you to be an _asshole_?”

Nick can’t stay still. He paces. 

“That seems like it could have lots of pitfalls.” 

Nick pauses in his step and arches an eyebrow. “You don’t think I can be an asshole?”

“Oh, you’ve totally got the asshole part down,” Thanasi says, with rather too much alacrity to be flattering. “But the tour’s not used to assholes.”

Nick flops down on the bed and steals a mouthful of Thanasi’s sandwich. With his mouth full, he says, “Everybody loves a bad boy. Take Safin.”

Thanasi rescues his sandwich and places it out of reach on the nightstand. “Safin mostly just slept with people. You’re talking next-level shit, controversy and bad behavior and horrible news stories about how you’re bad for Australia. The locker room’s gonna flip.”

“You’re not gonna flip on me, are you, baby?” Nick asks. He means it to come out lewd and slightly silly, but it’s a little softer than he means.

Thanasi sighs. “I suppose not. But if you call me baby again, I’ll cut all your racquet strings.”

Nick ignores that threat. “The Asshole Project only has to be really bad for the first stage. Then I reform. Everyone loves a reformed bad boy, right? By the time I get to stage two, I’ll be the most famous player in our generation by a long way. Coric’s got nothing on me.”

“Foolproof plan,” Thanasi says, sounding supremely unconvinced. “Foolproof.”

Nick steals some more of his sandwich as payback.

~

It’s not like being an asshole is that _hard_. Like Thanasi said, Nick kinda already has it down. He mostly just has to turn off his filter altogether. Pissed at a linejudge? Tell him. Fed up with an umpire? Tell him. Have a fucking shitty match? Tell the world.

By Wimbledon, it’s already working. Ten months since the initial conversation, and he’s the best-known player in his age-group. Nobody else gets results like he does – oh yeah, he just beat Federer, that’s right, 7-6(12) in the third, because he’s that fucking awesome – and nobody else does it with a fifth as much swagger. Oh, Rublev might threaten to have his opponents beaten up by goons, but he does it at some shitty little tournament in Russia or somewhere, and it doesn’t even really make the news. Nick’s reigning supreme.

He still has to take the next step, though. He gets some good headlines in Wimbledon – condemnatory, handwringing, lots of discussion about his antics and whether they reflect badly on his country – and then Dawn Fraser goes on a racist tirade against him, which is perfect. Tempests and firestorms, all well and good.

But it’s not enough. He’s well known in the tennis world, but he hasn’t hit the mainstream yet. Not in the way he needs to. Federer and Nadal are on their way out; if he wants to become a true star and join Djokovic and Murray as the most recognizable tennis names, he needs to make a big move.

“Evil genius fits you disturbingly well,” Thanasi says one night. 

“Huh?” Nick asks, distracted. They’re in bed, but they haven’t started fooling around yet, because Nick still has to finish slagging off these fans on Twitter. 

“You’re telling fans they’re nobodies?” 

“Might as well stick with the classics,” Nick says, sending the tweet and then sliding his phone onto the nightstand. “Now, where were we?”

He’s beginning to get an idea for his big move, although Thanasi’s teeth scraping under his jaw are currently making it kinda hard to think. He gives up (but only for the moment).

~

The ATP’s letting him slide on audible obscenities (he should’ve been defaulted at least three times by now), on respect to officials and umpires, and even on tanking. Eventually Nick supposes he’ll wear them down until they have to do something, but he can’t wait that long. What will they _have_ to take notice of? What will be _guaranteed_ to make him headline news?

He thinks about pulling a Hewitt, but it’s just not him. He’s not white, and if he started being racist towards umpires and officials, people might give him a pass because of that. Besides, his mother would be fucking furious, and Nick loves his mother. 

And then it all comes together like magic. 

The cherry on the sundae is that Nick really dislikes Wawrinka for real.

~

“You asshole,” Thanasi says, flatly, standing over the bed and staring down at Nick.

Nick spreads his arms. “That was the point.”

He’s still buzzing. He’s made his big move, and it’s exploded on the tennis world like dynamite. His agent’s already called to congratulate him. Tomorrow they’ll go over next moves, plan some follow-ups. For now, he’s earned the satisfaction of a job well done – and bagged his third win over a Slam champion, to boot.

“You are such an asshole,” Thanasi says, sounding frustrated and turned on, all at once.

At least Nick thinks he sounds turned on. He decides to run with it. “And you love it.”

“You could have gone after Stan without being _that_ much of an asshole,” Thanasi says, crossing his arms and looking thunderous, or as thunderous as it’s possible to look when you’re on the cute/adorable spectrum and have fluffy hair. “And you didn’t have to drag me into your crap.”

“But now people will start to get to know your name too,” Nick says, reasonably. “And you’ll come off as a wronged victim. You can be the angel to my devil.”

Not that Thanasi’s exactly an angel. At least, Nick’s pretty sure that angels aren’t supposed to moan as prettily as he does, or enjoy getting their cock sucked as much as he does. But then, Nick is kind of a sex god, so maybe even angels are bound to succumb.

“I can’t believe you dragged Donna in,” Thanasi says, still with the thundercloud on his forehead.

Nick shrugs. “She fucked you, now she’s fucking Wawrinka. I didn’t tell any _lies_. Besides, she’s been wanting Wawrinka to take their relationship public for months. I’m basically doing her a favor.” Not that she’ll probably see it that way at first. But you don’t get a reputation as a bad-boy/asshole without breaking a few eggs.

“I should make you sleep on the couch,” Thanasi says.

Nick sees several problems with this plan. “I have a match tomorrow.”

“Tough.”

“It’s my hotel room?”

Thanasi doesn’t look impressed.

Nick has a trump card, though. “I’ll apologize. In many different ways.”

Thanasi only lasts about thirty seconds. “Don’t do that thing with your eyebrows. Just don’t.”

“Get down here and let me apologize,” Nick says, unrepentant. 

His mouth is good for more things than sledging.

~

“So the next step,” Nick’s agent says, after initial compliments, “is to back up your fame with results. We’re looking for a Slam semifinal in the next twelve months.”

“What about the Asshole Project?” Nick asks. He’s grown fond of it. He’d hate to give it up entirely.

If the agent notices the capital letters in Nick’s voice, he ignores them. “Maintenance level. We want to maintain your image while avoiding any further suspensions.”

Maintenance-level asshole shouldn’t be hard. (Nick can almost hear Thanasi’s voice in his mind telling him that it’s Nick’s default state.) And Slam semifinal? He can totally do that. He’s Nick Kyrgios. He’s awesome.

When the agent leaves, he takes a selfie of himself in a “F**KIN’ PROBLEMS” baseball cap and makes it his Twitter profile picture. It’s his little celebration.

Thanasi sees it while he’s cooling down from his match with Fognini. Nick knows because he gets a text. It reads, “REALLY?”

Nick grins. 

He’s a pretty lucky guy. He’s a tennis superstar, a household name, a bad-boy with a chip on his shoulder, a devoted son and brother, an asshole, a giant-slayer, a fuckin’ sex god, everything all rolled up into one, and he’s got a boyfriend who loves him anyway. What more could a guy want? (Maybe a beer. He can steal one of Christos’s out of the fridge.)

Thanasi slides into bed at 2am. His feet are cold, but Nick magnanimously doesn’t squeal.

“Good night, asshole,” Thanasi says in his ear, slinging an arm over his hip and stealing most of the covers.

Nick smiles into his pillow.

~

_epilogue_

“I can make you a star,” Nick says.

Thanasi raises an eyebrow. “The asshole project? I pass.”

Nick is sweaty, and sticky, and those ice towels he’d …expressed himself strongly to Lahyani for not supplying enough of, they were a long time ago. But none of that matters. “Nah. You’re not asshole material.”

“Thanks, I think,” Thanasi says. “So how are you going to make me a star, then?”

Nick’s hair currently has lightning bolts in it. He feels like he’s been struck by lightning, and he’s never felt more alive. The cheering crowd is simultaneously overwhelming and nonexistent. He needs something to ground him, and he reaches out for Thanasi’s hand.

“Like this,” he says, and kisses him.

~

The day Nick Kyrgios wins his first Slam, he kisses Thanasi Kokkinakis in the stands, and the tennis world goes crazy. 

Just the way Nick likes it.


End file.
